On the relations between critical behaviour of soil moisture spatio-temporal dynamics and catchment descriptors

Auteur(s) et Affiliation(s)

DI DOMENICO, A.

Univ. degli Studi della Basilicata, Dip. di Ingegneria e Fisica dell'Ambiente, Potenza, Italie

LAGUARDIA, G.

Politecnico di Torino, Dip. di Idraulica, Trasporti ed Infrastrutture Civil, Torino, Italie

Description :
Working on a set of simulated daily soil moisture maps for 20 selected sub-catchments of the Red and Arkansas basins in the south-central United States, the AA. extract the critical point and compare its value to several morphologic indices of the catchments, such as bifurcation and elongation ratios, informational entropy, and the exponent of the power law distribution of areas. The relations between critical point and morphological indices seem to be affected by both hillslope and channel network morphological structures. The organization of soil moisture, as assessed by the critical point value, and of channel network should grow simultaneously. Whether factors disturbing the hillslope development occurred, they would cause a departure in such trend. Critical point could represent an integrated measure of catchments' organization.

Type de document :
Article de périodique

Source :
Catena (Giessen), issn : 0341-8162, 2011, vol. 86, n°. 1, p. 49-56, nombre de pages : 8, Références bibliographiques : 36 ref.

Date :
2011

Editeur :
Pays édition : Allemagne, Cremlingen-Destedt, Catena

Langue :
Anglais